''Colletes succinctus'', the common colletes or heather colletes, is a species of
Palearctic
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa.
The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sibe ...
mining bee
''Andrena'' is a genus of bees in the family Andrenidae. With over 1,500 species, it is one of the largest genera of animals. It is a strongly monophyletic group that is difficult to split into more manageable divisions; currently, ''Andrena'' i ...
from the family
Colletidae
The Colletidae are a family of bees, and are often referred to collectively as plasterer bees or polyester bees, due to the method of smoothing the walls of their nest cells with secretions applied with their mouthparts; these secretions dry int ...
. It is part of the ''succinctus''
species group
In biology, a species complex is a group of closely related organisms that are so similar in appearance and other features that the boundaries between them are often unclear. The taxa in the complex may be able to hybridize readily with each oth ...
within the genus ''
Colletes
The genus ''Colletes'' (plasterer bees) is a large group of ground-nesting bees of the family Colletidae. They occur primarily in the Northern Hemisphere. They tend to be solitary, but sometimes nest close together in aggregations. Species ...
'' and is especially closely related to the ivy bee (''
Colletes hederae
''Colletes hederae'', the ivy bee, is a species of plasterer bee belonging to the family Colletidae subfamily Colletinae.
Taxonomy
These mining bees have been only recently described (Schmidt & Westrich 1993) as a distinct species. Until then, ...
'') and the sea aster mining bee (''
Colletes halophilus'') which are partially
sympatric
In biology, two related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter one another. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct species sh ...
with ''C. succinctus'' but ecologically separate.
Description
''Colletes succinctus'' is a medium-sized bee which has pale hairs on its
clypeus and pale transverse bands on the thorax but with an orange, transparent band on the first tergite. It is similar to two rare related species, the ivy bee (''C. hederae'') and the sea aster mining bee (''C. halophilus''), both of which were identified as separate species from ''C. succinctus'' in 1993 and 1943 respectively. They are all, however, separated from each other by their ecology.
''C. succinctus'' measures 10mm in length.
Distribution
''Colletes succinctus'' is a widespread bee occurring from the southern part of
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
and from
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
east through Europe into Asia, south to
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
and as far east as
Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa people, ...
. In Britain it is widespread as far north as
Orkney
Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
.
[ In the southern part of its distribution it becomes more localised and is replaced by other closely related species, for example it is absent from North Africa where it appears to be replaced by '' Colletes intricans'', another member of the ''succinctus'' species group.][
]
Habitat
''Colletes succinctus'' is found on heathland and moorland in Britain[ and also in Europe where there are also some populations which occur among maritime dunes and on beaches.]
Biology
''Colletes succinctus'' nest in aggregations which in most of its range are quite small and can be difficult to locate ''C. succinctus'' as the females will nest singly or in small groups but in northern England and Scotland they may form large, dense aggregations of nests, with one aggregation recorded in North Yorkshire
North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by National parks of the United Kingdom, national parks, including most of ...
made up of 60–80,000 nests which were counted along 100m of river bank.[ In such dense aggregations the nests can be separated by just a few centimetres.] They are univoltine
Voltinism is a term used in biology to indicate the number of broods or generations of an organism in a year. The term is most often applied to insects, and is particularly in use in sericulture, where silkworm varieties vary in their voltinism.
...
and the flight period is July to October.[ In the early part of the fight period the males swarm around the aggregation and try to mate with emerging females. Sometimes a number of males will surround a single female and they will roll around on the ground until one of the males successfully mates with the female.][ Once the females have mated they start to dig their short burrows and create cells with walls made of a thin and transparent material which resembles cellophane in appearance and which is formed from a secretion produced in the ]Dufour's gland
Dufour's gland is an abdominal gland of certain insects, part of the anatomy of the ovipositor or sting apparatus in female members of Apocrita. The diversification of Hymenoptera took place in the Cretaceous and the gland may have developed at a ...
located in the bee's abdomen.[
The main food plants are heathers, especially ling '']Calluna vulgaris
''Calluna vulgaris'', common heather, ling, or simply heather, is the sole species in the genus ''Calluna'' in the flowering plant family Ericaceae. It is a low-growing evergreen shrub growing to tall, or rarely to and taller, and is found wid ...
'' and the females have been recorded travelling up to 1.5 km from the nest to collect pollen to provision the cells. They have also been recorded foraging on ''Erica
Erica or ERICA may refer to:
* Erica (given name)
* ''Erica'' (plant), a flowering plant genus
* Erica (chatbot), a service of Bank of America
* ''Erica'' (video game), a 2019 FMV video game
* ''Erica'' (spider), a jumping spider genus
* Eric ...
'', ivy
''Hedera'', commonly called ivy (plural ivies), is a genus of 12–15 species of evergreen climbing or ground-creeping woody plants in the family Araliaceae, native to western, central and southern Europe, Macaronesia, northwestern Africa and ...
and Asteraceae
The family Asteraceae, alternatively Compositae, consists of over 32,000 known species of flowering plants in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. Commonly referred to as the aster, daisy, composite, or sunflower family, Compositae w ...
[ as well as melilot ('']Melilotus
''Melilotus'', known as melilot, sweet clover, and kumoniga (from the Cumans),Bulgarian Folk Customs, Mercia MacDermott, pg 27 is a genus in the family Fabaceae (the same family that also includes the ''Trifolium'' clovers). Members are known ...
'' sp.), yarrow
''Achillea millefolium'', commonly known as yarrow () or common yarrow, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. Other common names include old man's pepper, devil's nettle, sanguinary, milfoil, soldier's woundwort, and thousand seal.
The ...
(''Achillea millefolia'') and creeping thistle (''Cirsium arvense
''Cirsium arvense'' is a perennial species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native throughout Europe and western Asia, northern Africa and widely introduced elsewhere.Joint Nature Conservation Committee''Cirsium arvense'' The standa ...
'').[ In Spain it has also been recorded feeding on '']Daphne gnidium
''Daphne gnidium'' (commonly known as the flax-leaved daphne) is a poisonous evergreen shrub from the Mediterranean region with narrow, dense dark-green foliage and white fragrant flowers.
Description
''Daphne gnidium'' is characterized by upri ...
'' and dwarf gorse (''Ulex minor
''Ulex minor'', the dwarf furze or dwarf gorse is an evergreen dwarf shrub in the family Fabaceae, native to eastern England, France, Spain and Portugal. It is restricted to lowland heathland habitats.
It normally grows about tall, although in ...
''). Alternative pollen sources to ''Calluna vulgaris'' are mainly used once the pollen of that species starts to run low in late summer.[
]
Parasites and predators
''Colletes succinctus'' nests are commonly cleptoparasitized by the cuckoo bee '' Epeolus cruciger''.[ They may also be parasitized by the ]sarcophagid
Sarcophagidae () are a family of flies commonly known as flesh flies. They differ from most flies in that they are ovoviviparous, opportunistically depositing hatched or hatching maggots instead of eggs on carrion, dung, decaying material, or op ...
fly
Flies are insects of the Order (biology), order Diptera, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek, Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwing ...
'' Miltogramma punctata '' while adults have been recorded as being predated by the crabronid wasp '' Cerceris rybyensis''.[
]
Taxonomy and phylogeny
''Colletes succinctus'' is a member of the ''succinctus'' species complex within the genus ''Colletes''. There are 12 species which are currently assigned to the ''succinctus'' species group which includes the Mediterranean species ''Colletes intricans'' from North Africa as well as '' C. collaris'' and '' C. brevigena'' from more southerly areas of Europe. The three western European species ''C. halophilus'', ''C. hederae'' and ''C. succinctus'' appear to be particularly closely related, so much so that the former two were only identified as separate species from ''C. succinctus'' in the 20th Century. They are almost indistinguishable from each other both phenotypically and genetically but are separated ecologically. The oldest species is thought to be ''C. succinctus'' and the distribution of this species closely matches that of its food plant. It is also parasitized by the cuckoo bee ''Epeolus cruciger'' with which it is largely sympatric.[
The other two species have distributions which lie within that of ''C. succinctus'' and do not closely match the distributions of their food plants while the cuckoo bee ''E. cruciger'' still uses them as hosts but it does not do so with the efficiency that it does with ''C. succinctus''. This strongly suggests that ''C. succinctus'' is the "parent" of ''C. halophilus'' ad ''C. hederae'' and that these two species arose from populations of ''C. succinctus'' isolated in ]glacial refugia A glacial refugium (''plural refugia'') is a geographic region which made possible the survival of flora and fauna in times of ice ages and allowed for post-glacial re-colonization. Different types of glacial refugia can be distinguished, namely nun ...
during the last glaciation
A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...
, probably in Iberia
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...
for ''C. halophilus'' and in northern Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
for ''C. hederae''. It is further postulated that the new species were probably expanding their ranges to exploit new populations of their foodplants and this can still be seen in the colonisation of southern Britain by ''C. hederae'' in the 1990s[ and its expansion in ]Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
. This hypothesis is further supported by the evidence that ''E. cruciger'' only parasitizes ''C. hederae'' south of the Alps and probably represents a localised and specialised "race" of ''E. cruciger'' which has not been able to expand its distribution as its host has done.[
]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q2187419
Colletidae
Hymenoptera of Europe
Bees described in 1758
Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus